Why have the players chosen to open that safe? We're here, why? Unless I picture the party going about opening random safes, the desired consequence - find what you were looking for in the safe - is what is resolved.
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Beyond whatever events kicked off play in session 1, DM does not decide if there is a situation: that's up to the group. Consequences are known - due to player choices and big picture elements - going in. DM doesn't choose stakes, they're chosen by the group.
If my players are standing at a safe with intent to open it, they're there with their objectives in mind. It's in view of resolving those objectives that they try to open the safe. D&D can be run as a railroad. When it's run that way - fair enough, your players are at the safe because you put them there. That's one way to run 5e.
The following passages are quoted from pp 2, 58 and 63 of the Basic PDF; they have some overlap with what
@Campbell posted:
In the Dungeons & Dragons game, each player creates an adventurer (also called a character) and teams up with other adventurers (played by friends). Working together, the group might explore a dark dungeon, a ruined city, a haunted castle, a lost temple deep in a jungle, or a lava-filled cavern beneath a mysterious mountain. The adventurers can solve puzzles, talk with other characters, battle fantastic monsters, and discover fabulous magic items and other treasure.
One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game’s lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore. The DM might describe the entrance to Castle Ravenloft, and the players decide what they want their adventurers to do. Will they walk across the dangerously weathered drawbridge? Tie themselves together with rope to minimize the chance that someone will fall if the drawbridge gives way? Or cast a spell to carry them over the chasm?
Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers’ actions and narrates what they experience. Because the DM can improvise to react to anything the players attempt, D&D is infinitely flexible, and each adventure can be exciting and unexpected. . . .
An ability check tests a character’s or monster’s innate talent and training in an effort to overcome a challenge. The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results. . . .
To make an ability check, roll a d20 and add the relevant ability modifier. As with other d20 rolls, apply bonuses and penalties, and compare the total to the DC. If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success - the creature overcomes the challenge at hand. Otherwise, it’s a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the DM. . . .
Whether adventurers are exploring a dusty dungeon or the complex relationships of a royal court, the game follows a natural rhythm, as outlined in the book’s introduction:
1. The DM describes the environment.
2. The players describe what they want to do.
3. The DM narrates the results of their actions.
Typically, the DM uses a map as an outline of the adventure, tracking the characters’ progress as they explore dungeon corridors or wilderness regions. The DM’s notes, including a key to the map, describe what the adventurers find as they enter each new area. Sometimes, the passage of time and the adventurers’ actions determine what happens, so the DM might use a timeline or a flowchart to track their progress instead of a map.
The first paragraph refers to
exploring,
discovering and
solving puzzles. Where does the fiction come from that is explored or discovered, and that makes up the puzzles that are solved? To me, the answer to that question is found in the last of the quoted passages: the GM has a map and a key, or notes in other forms that can serve a comparable purpose. That conclusion is reinforced by the second paragraph's reference to the GM
creating an adventure which contains
hazards to be overcome, and which contains
paths to explore.
The description of the action resolution process further reinforces this picture, which is not an unfamiliar one to anyone familiar with AD&D, B/X, or 3E. Players decide
what their adventurers want to do, which is described in terms of tasks - roping, walking, casting, flying. In the fourth paragraph, the function of an ability check is said to be to determine what happens if
an attempted action has a chance of failure. What
failure means here is not stated, but the overall procedure only makes sense if it means
failure at task. Here are some reasons why I say that:
* Success means the creature overcomes the challenge at hand. That suggests task, not conflict, resolution. What happens when the task is succeeded at? The GM's decision about the hazards to be overcome tells us that. If what happens was determined by player-authored intent, then all the stuff about the GM creating the adventure would be redundant.
* The final paragraph I've quoted says that the DM’s notes, including a key to the map, describe what the adventurers find as they enter each new area. That more than suggests - it outright states - that action declarations like I look through the doorway or I look in the safe are resolved by the GM saying what the PC sees. This is not consistent with using a check to open a safe with the goal of finding certain documents to resolve not only whether or not the safe is opened but also whether or not it contains the documents in question.
* Thinking of the safe example, if a player has their PC cast a Knock spell then no check is required: it's drama resolution. But there is not the least suggestion that, by casting a Knock spell, a player can establish that the fiction contains not only an open safe but also an open safe containing the documents I'm looking for. Nor do the rules contain any description of how the action declaration I cast a Knock spell might be turned into a conflict resolution declaration with stakes and a risk of failure and hence adverse consequences.
This is why I have repeatedly asked how you are establishing situations, establishing stakes, and resolving them.
For instance, your players want their PCs to find certain documents:
* How do you establish whether or not there is a safe for them to search? [The rules I've quoted say that the GM writes this into their notes, and the players must declare actions that establish a fictional position for their PCs that makes We open the safe a permissible action declaration.]
* If the PCs are standing around a safe, and declare We open the safe looking for the documents, how do you establish whether - if they successfully open the safe (by making a check, or by casting Knock, or because you as GM decide there is no chance of failure and so don't require anything further beyond the declaration) - they find the documents inside. [The rules I've quoted say that the GM writes the location of the documents into their notes, and to find them the players must declare actions that establish a fictional position for their PCs that makes I pick up the documents I see a permissible action declaration.]
* If the PCs open the safe, and do or don't find the documents they are looking for, how do you establish whether that resolves the situation or rather is just a step in the rising action, with further immediate consequences or escalation of the situation flowing? [The rules I've quoted say that the GM does this, primarily by referring to their notes, which describe what is there, what the relevant timelines and events might be - eg guard timetables - etc.]
I sincerely feel you are allowed to make decisions about games. Game texts are tools. You can decide - is the advice text a ball-and-chain and I'll make sure I uphold it? 5e is DM-curated - it is system + DM matters. When I'm DM, that matters.
The intro calls out that it's your game.
This is not in dispute, but doesn't really respond to
@Campbell's point and certainly doesn't answer my questions. I am asking - and now have asked many times -
how you make certain decisions. Upthread, when you described your processes, they seemed to conform rather closely to the 5e rules text:
The fact that the GM can choose to follow up the resolution of the safe-opening task with whatever framing they prefer - empty safe, locked safe, guards turning up, the heavens opening and angels appearing, etc - doesn't change the basic point.
The fact that you point to extrapolations from the fiction - What NPCs or polities, with what motives, are implicated? Have the PCs avoided passing guards or magical alarms? What other means might those NPCs and polities have? - only reinforces my point. You are describing exploratory play. The GM is in a privileged position of authorship. That's how exploratory play works! (I posted some examples of my actual play upthread, and linked to fuller play accounts.)
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But in the posts I've quoted you're not describing anything fundamentally different from the example found on p 2 of the Basic PDF, that I posted upthread. Fundamental to framing, and to resolution, is the fiction established by the GM.
You're now saying that you don't follow the processes set out in the 5e rules. OK. But I'm at a loss as to what processes you do follow.
As DM, non-player character means and motives are mine to decide: I say what non-player characters do. There can even be non-player characters I know about that the player-characters haven't met yet. I don't say - I never get to say - what player-characters do!
There are two interpretations of this.
One is fairly trivial: the GM handles the backstory, the players declare actions for their PCs. Most RPGs works this way. Apocalypse World, Tunnels & Trolls, RuneQuest, Burning Wheel, the Dragonlance modules for AD&D - they all work this way.
The other is false: if a player declares
I open the safe to look for the documents, and the GM's notes have determined that the safe is empty, then one true description of what the character is doing is
opening the safe that doesn't have what they want in it. And it is the GM who has decided that that description is true, in virtue of their authoring of their notes, not the player.
This idea - that my players in 5e could be standing at a safe that they have zero meaningful objectives in relation to - I honestly don't get that?
The only person entertaining that idea is you. I'm not.
@Campbell is not. We are talking about
who establishes what is at stake in an action declaration, and
whether or not an action declaration resolves a situation. The fact that a player can decide their PC wants to look for some documents in a safe tells us nothing about the things Campbell and I are talking about. We're talking about
what happens next - how is it established (i) whether or not the PC opens the safe and (ii) if they do, what they find in there, and (iii) whether or not they open it, and whatever they find, whether some further consequence results.
The 5e game mechanics don't get in the way of asymmetrical but equal, shared authorship.
I've already given one example in this thread where they do: the Knock spell gets in the way of resolving the opening of a safe to try and find documents in a conflict resolution fashion.
) that will require Season-spanning upkeep
